Statement: The public education system seems to be failing as there is a discrepancy between the number of minorities attaining higher education. Not only is lack of resources a huge factor in this, but also lack of information. Public education funding comes from the community tax payers, and depending on the socioeconomic level within the community, the lack of funding is evident in public education. It is a difficult process to try to get more public funding or federal grants, but we should not let this lack of funding impede student from receiving proper information about colleges and universities. High school students are not being properly educated on higher education and often graduate high school with complete disregard of opportunities available to them. Lack of information given to students has put a great strain in minorities achieving higher education.
Recommendation: In high school, I did not have a mentor or someone to guide me through getting accepted to college, because my own personal drive is what compelled me to do my research. That is my personality and how I function as a person, but many other high schoolers may not have that drive but still want to achieve success in higher education. I went to high school in Greenville, SC and there are less than five organizations that work specifically in the Hispanic/ Latinx population, but none of them have a direct mentoring program for high school students in the upstate. A program where college graduates, especially those who grew up in upstate, mentor high schoolers could positively impact the amount of college graduates that come from the upstate. This mentoring program would provide scholarship opportunities, information on FAFSA, SAT and ACT preparation tips, student loan and repayment workshops, as well as other initiatives. My experience in higher education does not represent the struggle and success of other students, but the resources I used to get to this point could help other Hispanic/Latinx youth succeed in higher education.
Implementation: The first step in creating any program is having a clear targeted population. My intended population would be high school students, with a clear emphasis on high school sophomores. All high school years are important but sophomore year is the perfect turning point for any student that would like to further on their education. Freshman year is always a trial run for students as they are entering a whole new environment that they must learn to get accustomed since they will be there for the next four years. If grades freshman year were low, sophomore year is the ideal turning point to ensure academic success that may provide further opportunities for higher education. Colleges and universities like to focus on the last two previous years of high school, which when you apply as a junior, this means 10th and 11th grade. This is why high school sophomores are the emphasized population for this mentoring program.
In order to effectively create a program that will benefit the community I must first recruit people who have the same passion for the success of the Hispanic/ Latinx population in Greenville, SC. The first organization I would contact is Hispanic Alliance, as they are known in the upstate for creating events that promote unity within the Latino culture, and alliance to those who have an appreciation for it. I would first contact the director and set up a meeting to propose the program and hopefully gain community support. This organization already has a community of followers, so partnering with an already establish organization would help me get the mentoring program started quickly. Not only do I need community support for the program, I also would need to recruit college graduates that would be interested in sharing their experiences with high school students. Most importantly, I must emphasize to college graduates the huge amount of privilege they have because they have a college degree. I must explain to them how the system that has allowed them to succeed might not allow others to succeed and with guidance more high school students could be in their same position. Privilege is not something that can be easily explained, but I can start with the privilege walk activity from my SAEL 200 class, that allowed me to understand what it means.
After getting community support and volunteer recruitment, I must find high schools that would allow this mentoring program to be implemented in their school. It can be an after school program, that meets once a month that provides students who registered for it, information to resources available. Classes usually start mid-August, and by the time classes start we must have at least one high school that has allowed the mentoring program to be implemented. In order to choose a high school, we must first research which high school has a low amount of high school graduates and which community has a low percentage of students completing degrees in higher education. This data collection must be done effectively in order to ensure success in the program’s outcome. We must look at high schools in different parts of Greenville, SC and look at the socioeconomic background of its community and determine if the high school would benefit from this program. We must also consider the percentage of minorities within their student population as our targeted population is Hispanic/ Latinx students.
Evaluation: There is going to be a registration process for all interested students in the mentoring program. The registration process will consist of an application that will ask students to state their academic goals and future aspirations. The application process is not to select students on who is allowed to be mentored, but rather it provides the mentee a general sense of who is interested in attaining higher education. All interested students will be accepted, or at least until we have reached capacity for a certain session. This initiative will have to start as volunteer work as no major advocacy work has ever been paid to do, but with time I hope this program receives enough community support where local business could help fund this program. I also hope to receive state funding that will continue the implementation of the program. The program will consist of mentoring sessions once a month with small groups of 5-10 student per mentor. We will track the number of scholarships students apply and are granted, SAT and ACT scores, individual GPAs, extracurricular activities, and other factors that will help students achieve academic success. We will be able to track the success of the program by comparing the mentor students to non-mentored students and hopefully see a significant difference in the rate of success of mentored students. If students join the mentoring program at the start of their sophomore year, we will be able to track progress for two academic years and use graduating seniors from the mentoring program as examples of the program’s success.
I hope that with this program I can help more high school students attain higher education as well an inspire other community members to becoming community leaders and make a positive change in their communities.